How To Keep Your Baby From Sticking Their Arms & Legs Through The Crib Bars

Sometimes parenting can feel like a never-ending attempt to keep your kids from injuring themselves, despite their seemingly innate ability to find trouble in even the safest spaces. Just when you think you have it under control, your baby starts rolling, crawling, pulling themselves up, and getting into everything. Before you know it danger is all around you, once again. My babies were always sticking their arms and legs through the crib bars, which made me relentlessly worry about them at night, afraid that at any moment I would hear my little one cry out in pain. So what can a parent do to prevent this from happening? Unfortunately, the answer is "nothing," which, if you ask me, is nothing short of frustrating. Parenting is not for the faint of heart, my friends.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and their safe sleep guidelines, the safest place for an infant to sleep is on their backs and on a separate sleep surface designed for infants, like a crib, bassinet, or play yard. This separate sleep space, per AAP recommendations, should be in the parents' room for at least the first year of the child's life (also known as co-sleeping, but not to be confused with bed-sharing). The AAP guidelines also recommend that the only bedding any parent uses in their baby's crib should be a fitted sheet. That means if parents want to reduce the risk of suffocation and/or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), they should not use products like crib bumpers, including mesh or cloth liners.

If you are confused about this particular recommendation, you aren't alone. It seems like every baby aisle in every store contains products, like crib bumpers and other devices that attach to the sides or slats of a crib, to keep babies safe and cozy. However, and despite these manufacturers' claims, the AAP warns parents not to use them, citing research that crib bumpersdon't actually work to reduce injury, and can very well increase your babies' risk of strangulation and suffocation.

An additional study, published in The Journal of Pediatrics, showed that crib bumpers caused an increased number of deaths and injuries in recent years when infants suffocated, became trapped, or accidentally choked on bumper ties. In response to the study, the AAP has called for a federal ban on crib bumpers in an attempt to not only save infant lives, but to make things less confusing for new, sleep-deprives parents who might understandably think that if a product is sold in stores, it is automatically safe.